Portland psychiatric hospital adds services to help people safely withdraw from hard drugs

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Northeast Portland psychiatric hospital is adding emergency substance use disorder services to its roster as the community hopes to find solutions to the ongoing addiction crisis.

The Unity Center for Behavioral Health expansion fills a gap left by the 2019 closure of Central City Concern's sobering center, which was predominantly for alcohol detoxification. Officials with the hospital said the shift in focus is to address the meth and fentanyl crisis in the Portland area.

The new substance use disorder services at Unity Center are designed to manage methamphetamine and fentanyl withdrawal, offering nine beds and expecting to serve over 800 patients in the first year.

“They are geared towards anybody in the community that is experiencing an acute psychiatric crisis that includes substance use and the need of medical withdrawal management,” said Unity Center President Melissa Eckstein.

Eckstein said their services include emergency drop-offs, walk-in care, withdrawal management, harm reduction education, peer support and more.

"What we can offer is for that person to be triaged by a nurse, seen by a provider, medications can be given," Eckstein said. "We offer a safe environment for somebody to withdraw and to continue to receive psychiatric care. And between our peers and our social worker, we help connect individuals to other resources that are available in the community to help them with their healing process."

Unity's expanded substance use disorder services was originally announced for opening up in March of this year. However, it kept getting pushed back. KOIN 6 News asked Eckstein why these delays were happening in light of the fact that Providence was able to open up a similar unit in January.

"I think for anyone who has had to do construction within a hospital or that has experience in building out behavioral health, substance use treatment programs, there are a lot of variables that in the beginning planning phases of that you cannot account for," Eckstein said.

The hospital president said not only did the construction itself take longer than expected but the regulation and permitting process, as well. However, the unit is now open and offering substance use disorder services 24/7.

"We wanted to make sure that our programming was 100% set and we were ready to open with no hiccups," she said.

The hospital can give oral medication to help someone withdraw from drugs. However, Eckstein said they're not offering patients IV treatments for detox at this time due to safety concerns.

"The thing to remember about Unity is that we deal with the most acute individuals in the community, and because we are a licensed psychiatric hospital, we have to be really mindful about the environment and people not having access to something that they could hurt themselves with," Eckstein said. "So that IV presents something that we've not interfaced with before, so we're taking it slowly and making sure that we've got this service rolled out and then I think that is something that the medical team would like to look at in the future."

Eckstein emphasized the importance of the collective effort in addressing the crisis on Portland's streets, saying not a single organization or agency can meet all the needs alone.

"I think we have to continue to focus on where our gaps are and what we can do together to bridge those gaps," she said.

The Unity Center's new substance use disorder services will provide a place where individuals, families, ambulances or police can take people in psychiatric crisis who need help withdrawing from drugs.

The expansion is funded with the public's tax dollars. In late 2022, CareOregon and Health Share committed to funding the nine beds at Unity Center—$4 million for capital construction from Health Share, plus $3.5 million a year to cover ongoing operations from CareOregon. In spring of 2023, the City of Portland and Multnomah County committed additional funds of $335,000 each to close an unexpected gap in construction funding.